[Lightscreen]
[Looking back now, one has to admit something.
The steppe really was blessed by nature.
With the four great grasslands of Hulunbuir, Ulanqab, Xilingol, and Horqin, the moment a strong power rose there, any Central Plains dynasty might need generations of exhausting effort just to bring it under control.
In this regard, the Liao dynasty actually had the advantage of proximity. The Khitans themselves rose from the steppe, so from the very beginning they focused on crushing and subduing troublesome tribes like the Ugul and Dilie, establishing firm authority over the grasslands.
By comparison, the Jin dynasty handled things disastrously. Their deeply unstable political structure, the excessive privileges granted to Jurchen nobles, and their founding policy of refusing any compromise with Southern Song all left Jin struggling to keep a grip on the steppe.
Especially between roughly 1130 and 1148, the century-long direction of East Asia was essentially shaped by the actions of just a few men:
Yue Fei, Wanyan Gou, Yelü Dashi, Habule, and Jin Xizong Wanyan Dan.
How formidable Yue Fei was, how disastrously useless Wanyan Gou could be, and how fierce Yelü Dashi proved to be… those are things we all know.
And while Yue Wumu's northern campaigns succeeded repeatedly thanks to the strength of the Yue army and his own brilliance as a commander, another reason was that Jin Xizong had to devote a great deal of attention to the steppe at the time.
When Yelü Dashi fled west with only two hundred riders and managed to establish Western Liao in just eight years, it certainly was not because those two hundred men could magically multiply. What truly supported him was the lingering prestige built from Liao's two centuries of steppe rule, which earned him backing from tribes such as the Naiman.
Faced with this situation, the Jin emperor could hardly avoid anxiety. Southern Song's northern campaigns might only recover scraps of land, but if the steppe tribes unified under Western Liao's banner, then Jin's own homeland would truly be at risk.
So the political situation in Asia during that period was actually very simple:
Yue Fei fought the Jin.
Wanyan Gou fought Yue Fei.
Jin fought Yue Fei while also fighting the steppe.
The steppe followed Western Liao.
And Western Liao… went west conquering Central Asia.
In 1141, Yelü Dashi defeated the Seljuk Empire at the Battle of Qatwan, and his prestige soared.
But once Western Liao pushed deep into Central Asia, it naturally shared little interest with tribes rooted in the East Asian steppe. The Naiman soon broke away, and with that, the Khitans' two-century hold over the grasslands finally collapsed.
Meanwhile, during this same period, Jin fought Habule of the steppe five times.
Sometimes Jin failed to win.
Sometimes the outcome was mixed.
Sometimes they suffered outright defeat.
In the end, with no better option, Jin took the initiative to negotiate peace. They ceded twenty-seven fortified settlements, agreed to send annual supplies to the steppe, and formally invested Habule Khan as King of the Mongol State. Only then did the fighting stop.
The Khitans had left the steppe for Central Asia.
Jin never truly subdued the grasslands.
Southern Song was too far away to even watch comfortably.
From that point onward, Mongol independence truly began.
And it was in exactly this environment that Genghis Khan was born, eventually beginning his campaigns to unite the steppe.]
"State of the Mongols…"
Li Shimin suddenly remembered something. He strode quickly to his desk and rummaged through it, soon lifting out the climate chart.
"As expected…"
Li Shimin could not stop shaking his head.
"So later generations were right. The Jin dynasty could have used this century-long warm period to restore governance, strengthen the state, prolong its mandate, and flourish."
"Instead, they sank into pleasure and handed this golden era to others."
It truly was a golden era.
The recording method on the chart was unusual, but with the explanation from the light screen and comparison to historical texts, the Zhenguan ministers could understand most of it. The temperature changes in particular were striking.
As the chart passed around Ganlu Hall, everyone could clearly see that from the Han through the Ming and Qing, there were only three periods that counted as climatic peaks:
the early Han,
the early Tang,
and the late Southern Song into the early Yuan.
And the importance of climate needed no explanation to anyone in the hall. Every year at the suburban altar, what did they pray for if not favorable winds and timely rain?
Wei Zheng, especially, could not help feeling regret.
"If Yue Wumu had truly been allowed to realize his ambitions… if he had only recovered Hebei, then with ten or twenty years of favorable timing to govern and prepare, he might well have possessed the strength to save a collapsing realm."
"After all, when he died he was only thirty-nine. Even twenty years later he would still have been battle-capable. In those twenty years, how much land might he have reclaimed? How many elite soldiers trained? How many commanders cultivated?"
But everyone knew such speculation could only remain an "if."
Wei Zheng stopped himself, sighed softly, and quoted the poem they had just heard:
"Truly… demons delight in human flaws. Du Fu The Poet Sage spoke no falsehood."
While Wei Zheng was still lost in quiet lament, Li Shimin's expression had already grown grave.
What caught his attention was the initial evaluation of the steppe.
He did not know how later generations classified the four great grasslands, but the claim that once a powerful ruler rose there it could take generations for the Central Plains to suppress them felt painfully familiar.
The Han against the Xiongnu.
The Tang against the Turks.
And Song, Liao, and Jin against the Mongols.
Emperor Wu of Han exhausted the state with relentless warfare, building strong armies that pursued the nomads north and shattered their strength, securing the frontier.
When Li Shimin was still Prince of Qin, he fought the Turks repeatedly. After ascending the throne, he endured the humiliation at the Wei River, so he studied closely the northern strategies of both Emperor Wu of Han and Emperor Wen of Sui.
The Han–Xiongnu wars made one thing obvious. If elite troops struck decisively, they could cripple the enemy. But if large armies marched without victory, the cost of feeding men and horses alone meant disaster.
That was why Li Shimin so admired the old general Li Jing, whether it was the three thousand cavalry who launched a snowy night raid on Dingxiang to destroy Jieli Khan, or the pursuit north that crushed Tuyuhun.
Of course, the Tuyuhun campaign in this timeline had already diverged greatly from history. Cannons had made their reputation in that battle. Hou Junji, who should have earned merit there, instead pursued the enemy southward into the southern seas. A letter sent a few days ago with the rice seeds claimed he intended to bypass Linyi and continue west. Who knew where he was now.
…Right. Getting carried away.
In any case, Li Shimin felt that in dealing with the steppe tribes, he might already have found a method of warfare that was not necessarily the easiest, but certainly the most effective.
Which left one remaining question.
How could the steppe be controlled so it would never again produce disaster?
Emperor Wu of Han relied mainly on war, with pacification as support, forcing submission.
Emperor Wen of Sui used distant alliances and nearby attacks, dividing the strong and uniting the weak to split them east and west.
From what later generations said of Tang history, even by the time of his death Li Shimin had not solved this problem. And afterward, neither his son nor the woman of the Wu clan found especially effective answers.
As for Li Longji, there was no need to mention him. An Lushan himself came from a Turkic background, which alone revealed the limits of Tang policy toward the steppe.
The Khitans had once been tribes south of the desert, yet eventually reentered the Chinese political order and suppressed the grasslands for two centuries. That might be called using barbarians to control barbarians. But judging from the outcome… the effect was clearly limited.
Among those in the hall, the one most adept at reading the emperor's thoughts was Zhangsun Wuji.
Seeing His Majesty silently tapping the "Yuan" mark on the climate chart, he thought for a moment before speaking.
"Why should Your Majesty worry? The Xiongnu have long ceased to be a threat from the Han until now. The Mongol Yuan lasted barely a century. The Zhu Ming dynasty must have had its own balancing methods. As long as this light screen remains, we will surely see them."
Li Shimin nodded and sighed softly.
"It is a pity that within this light screen, we do not see people of the Ming era."